Roy had heard her voice and her sobs. He opened the door softly and saw her with her head on the breast of her dead and the long sobbing sighs coming with the silences between. He closed the door noiselessly again, and took his young wife in his arms. His voice was choked and broken. "Emma, my darling, perhaps if you were to go to her--perhaps she would know that _you_ can understand--perhaps you could comfort her, if--" "No, no, Roy, she would hate me if I were to go in there now--I who have you! I who am so happy and so blest! I know! I know, darling. Let her alone--for awhile. Oh, Roy. If it were you! If--if--it were I in there, with--with _you_ dead! Oh, Roy!" They clung to each other in silence. Both understood. At last he said, holding his wife to his heaving breast: "And we cannot help her! Not even God can help her now--if there be a God--not even He can help her now! He would be too late to undo His own cruelty! Ah, love and death! Love and death! how could a good God make both!" The young wife shuddered and was silent. Her faith could not compass that situation. Love was too new and too strong. Doubt entered the door Love had swung open for these two, and took up his seat at their fireside forever. An hour later, as they talked in whispers, Roy said: "To think that we all escaped in battle--and he from worse danger--and now!" "Mos' Roy, honey, I wisht yoh'd take dis heah rabbit foot in dar t' Mis' Kate! Lawsy, Mos' Roy, she gwine ter go outen her mine if she don' look out. Aunt Judy don' need dis heah foot lack what Mis' Kate do now, honey. You des go in dar an' des kinder put hit inter Mis' Kate's pocket er somewheres. Hit ain't gwine ter do her no harhm--an' mebby hit mout do'er some kine er good, kase I gwine ter _gib_ hit to her tor keep fer all de time now." Roy took the proffered gift quite gravely. "Thank you, aunt Judy, you were always good to us--always. I will take it in there after a while;" he said, and the heroic old soul hobbled away, happy in her supreme sacrifice. It was night.... To Katherine it seemed that the darkness must be eternal. Yet the sun rose on the morrow, and Life took up its threads and wove on another loom. THE END. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of An Unoficial Patriot, by Helen Gardener